FromSoftware's most recent releases have continually emphasized fast-paced combat with lots of parrying, but with Elden Ring the development team behind games like Dark Souls and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has a chance to return to their roots and offer more variety in how players can approach combat.
Veteran Souls players will remember the glory days early games like the original Dark Souls, which allowed for a wide variety of different playstyles. Later games from FromSoftware, like Bloodborne and Sekiro, provided a much more limited array of combat options for players to use. These two games in particular focused almost entirely on parrying in a fast-paced combat environment. Tank builds are practically absent. These games do what they do well, with correctly timed parries being rewarded with big damage and more health. But, if the player isn't someone who wants to play fast and dangerous, or they simply don't want to bother honing their reactions, then they aren't going to make it far in the worlds of Bloodborne or Sekiro.
Compare that to an older game like Dark Souls, where choosing to go through the entire game naked, parrying and riposting every enemy attack, or trudging through the ruins of Lordran in impenetrable stone armor like a stubborn tortoise with the intent to kill, are both entirely viable options. Theoretically, the player can make it through the entirety of Dark Souls without ever parrying or dodging, instead simply relying on their high defense stats and health pool to survive. That kind of choice was a large part of why the Dark Souls series became so popular. It only takes one look at the long list of insane challenge and gimmick runs of Souls games on YouTube to understand that fans love these games for their versatility as much as anything else, and Elden Ring needs these combat options.
The player isn't limited to two options either. There are always a good selection of different starting classes in Dark Souls games, each representing a unique playstyle. In general, the games all have at least three different types of spell casters whose spells often operate completely differently. In the original Dark Souls for instance, pyromancy set itself apart from spells and miracles by not scaling with any particular stat. While spell damage typically scales with intelligence, and miracles scale with faith, pyromancies only increased with damage when the player upgraded their pyromancy flame. This meant that, as long as players could equip a pyromancy, they could play one of the simplest hybrid builds in the game regardless of the playstyle they had already committed to.
That's why it's important that Elden Ring breaks away from the gameplay tropes established in Bloodborne and Sekiro. This is a brand new world that is supposedly more open than any of its predecessors, and players should have access to a more diverse array of viable strategies. There is more to wielding a shield than parrying, and rather than operating as an accessory to the player's toolkit, magic can take the front seat in combat.
Players who are new to the series can look forward to getting a taste of this versatility when the Demon's Souls Remake comes out on PS5. Assuming the game lives up to the quality of its predecessors, it's all set to be the perfect way to relearn a parry-free playstyle before Elden Ring's upcoming release.